Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1887-04-22
POST RUSSEl'S CAMPFIRE.

The town hall was well filled on We'd
nesday evening by those in attendance
upon the campfire given by Post Russell,
6. \. II. Commander c. ii. Williamson
presided. First came a song by quartet
composed of DR.. Sheldon and Messrs.
Munroe. Coolidge and Thomas. Then
Hon. John W. Stewart was introduced.
He had, he said. been asked to say some
thing about matters at Washington, but
that opened too large a field for him to
cover in a reasonable time. He should
therefore contine his remarks to the de-
pendent pension bill. in which every citi-
zen, and especially every veteran, was
interested. This bill had been greatly
misrepresented by the leading papers of
the country, and was misconstrued by
the President in his veto message. The
purpose of the bill was simply and solely
to provide support for those eX-sodiers
who by reason of wounds or disease con-
tracted in the service are incapacitated
for supporting themselves. The COM
mittee on INVALID pensions, of which Mr..
Mattison, IA very able man, is chairman,
spent months in perfecting it so that it
should answer the end stated. 1t gave
these dependent veterans Sl2 month.
1t was carefully framed, and no reason
able man could put a construction upon
its provisions to make it do more or less.
1t had been said that claim agents orgi-
mated the bill; but this every member
of the committee denied. But the
President vetoed it on the same
day that he signed the Mexican pension
bill, which gave IS a month to every
} Mexican soldier under siXty-two years OF
age disabled from any cause whatsoever
and the same amount to every one over
abled or not, and, besides, pensioned the
, widow of every Mexican soldier, ever
, though she was not the wife of the sol
. dier at the time of his service and even il
he fought on the side of the rebels il
the late war. Statistics gathered by the
committee when engaged in preparing
the dependent pension bill showed tha
the whole country contained but 9,00l
eX-soldiers who would come within tn,
, terms of the act but the committee mul
tiplied this number by three and addeC
three thousand to that, thus reaching
their estimate of 81 900. TO give each o
these Sl44 year would require less than
| five million dollars year, small sun
{ when the wealth and income of the na
: ton are taken into account. But ther,
, are other considerations, land they viii
2 come up in the future, for this matter i
by no means settled as yet. This coun
1 try maintains but small standing army
and must depend for its defence in emer
gencies upon volunteers. 1t would pa,
vastly more than it would cost to max
, the people understand that those who ex
, pose themselves to the dangers of wa
t will be taken care of when they are III
D longer able to care for themselves. An
= other thing; hundreds and thousands o
0 those who are justly entitled to pension
/. are unable to procure them from the lac
a of evidence. Few men served in tn
: ranks without serious detriment to thei
3 health. At the time it was not noticed
: but with increased age the seeds of dis
S ease gathered in Southern swamps max
1 themselves felt. And it seems to hav
a been forgotten, too, that very many O
those who would come within the.provis
!, ions of this act already receive pensions
e Every Southern man, with one exception